


The Perfect Plan

by forgetme



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M, Marriage of Convenience
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 12:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10277717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetme/pseuds/forgetme





	

As soon as Kakashi spotted the gold-edged scroll sitting like a decorative cherry on top of the mountain of paperwork on his desk, he let out a soft groan. 

Without touching it and careful not to disturb the precarious looking stack of files with too swift a movement, he let himself sink into his office chair and, for good measure, scooted away from the offending item.

Somehow, in her years as the Fifth’s personal assistant, Shizune had apparently developed a special sense to detect the shirking of duties because she chose this very moment to walk into his office, a clipboard pressed to her chest and a bright smile on her face. “Your mail has already been checked for poison and chakra traps, Kakashi-sama. You can go ahead and open it right away!” 

Not for the first time, Kakashi found himself wondering whether her cheerfulness was directly related to how miserable he no doubt looked. 

“Shizune…” he sounded, Kakashi thought upon hearing his own voice, coming in a nasal, drawl, wrung out of him by sleep-deprivation, almost as old and tired as he felt. “I thought I’d told you to quit with the formality…” He glared at the scroll. “And isn’t it your job to sort through this stuff in the morning and dispose of everything that doesn’t require the Hokage’s attention?” 

Maybe it wasn’t, Kakashi realized, even before he’d finished the question. Shizune was certainly the highest-ranking of the plethora of desk-nin populating the Hokage tower and she spent a lot of time running after him, probably more than just a lot, upon further consideration. Plus, she still helped out at the hospital. “If it’s not yours, it ought to be someone’s…” he grumbled, somewhat contrite.

“These are addressed to Konohagakure’s Sixth Hokage. After they have passed the security inspection, they’re for your eyes only. That’s the law.”

Kakashi dragged a hand across the uncovered half of his face. He grimaced when he picked up the scroll, but his mask hid his tortured expression. Shizune had enough decency to look a little less cheerful and even slightly sympathetic.

“There are worse letters you could get, Kakashi...san.”

Kakashi appreciated the effort, but the frequency of these letters was starting to make him twitchy. The contents of the scroll were exactly what he had expected them to be. He could tell that much, just from unrolling the first inch. 

“This is the eighth proposal of an omiai this month,” he said as he let his eyes skim the actual words in front of him, “the third one from Muchizuke-san. Huh, apparently he has another daughter I could marry. She just turned eighteen.” Kakashi looked up to see his assistant’s reaction to that last bit of information, but Shizune’s expression didn’t change at all. 

“You don’t have to meet her. Or any of the others, for that matter,” she said simply.

“I don’t plan to.”

A moment of quiet between them, during which they both contemplated the matter separately, their thoughts unfolding to the sounds of the waking village. 

Suddenly, they spoke in unison, “But…” 

Shizune pressed her lips together and gestured for him to finish his sentence first. Seeing her frown, Kakashi was sure they had both arrived at the same conclusion. 

“This is starting to become a problem,” he said. He had a pile of letters from fathers, uncles, brothers, cousins twice removed, and so on, each of them urging him to meet so-and-so, the most beautiful, tender, wonderful, perfect woman in all of Fire/Wind/Water/Earth/whatever Nation, nay the whole world. He’d received letters from the women themselves too, of course, not to mention their mothers, aunts, sisters et cetera. The list was endless; the piles were growing. Kakashi was sick of it.

Shizune, however, looked serene. “I think Naruto’s wedding made people realize that marrying into a powerful shinobi clan could have immense advantages. It’s been years since the Fourth War ended. This new era, this sense of stability and growth, it feels unprecedented. I think civilians are starting to trust us again, to see us as more than just - at best - soldiers.” 

She left the at worst unspoken; they both knew too well what their kind could be to those who did not have chakra and jutsu to defend themselves.

“These days,” Shizune continued, “a woman might marry a shinobi and not inevitably be widowed before her first hair turns gray.”

“And yet, accepting one of these proposals could seriously endanger the very peace that encouraged them,” Kakashi mused.

“Just as declining them might,” Shizune countered.

It was true. People were starting to get more pushy. He’d had angry enquiries, men demanding explanations why he wouldn’t even deign to spend as little as an hour with their perfect daughter, tear-stained letters from the women in question wondering why the Hokage wouldn’t give them a chance. 

“How did my predecessor handle this kind of thing?” he asked, a sense of desperation rising bile-like in his stomach.

To his surprise Shizune let out a wry little laugh. “Tsunade-sama is a woman well past childbearing age. And also known to be quite… complicated.”  
That was certainly one way to put it, Kakashi thought.

“She didn’t have this particular problem.”

His gaze drifted back to the parchment in his hands. He felt like whining, why me? But the answer was painfully obvious. He was a thirty-three year-old bachelor, male, the last member of a famous clan. The White Fang’s good name had been restored and Hatake Kakashi had become Konoha’s Sixth Hokage. The title alone was worth a lot, add to that Konoha’s economic growth and prosperity…

“You could just get married, you know. There are worse things in the world than having a beautiful young wife and children waiting for you at home, Hokage-sama.”

At the mere mention of children, the hairs at the back of Kakashi’s neck stood up. 

“Choosing one of these women over the others would leave more people feeling slighted than appeased,” he said quickly.

“True, at least for a while. They’ll move on, though. They’ll have to, once you’re off the market, right? But, you know, it would be best if you’d do what Naruto did. If you married someone with whom the others simply couldn’t compete. A childhood sweetheart, someone you’ve known for a long time, a kunoichi who has fought by your side, somebody like that. That way, it wouldn’t look like playing favorites with our diplomatic relations; it wouldn’t look like political strategy. It would have nothing to do with the village and you wouldn’t have to worry about it any longer.”

“Maybe if I told them I was gay…”

Shizune’s mouth quirked into a rare smirk that was half amusement, half pity. “I think you’d just end up with a lot of letters from men wanting to meet you, Kakashi-sama. If I remember correctly, Muchizuke-san is a widower. He’s in his late fifties and quite spry.”

Kakashi sighed, letting himself sink deeper into his chair. 

“So you think I have no choice but to get married?”

“Of course you have a choice, but I think they won’t stop pestering you with these letters. If we don’t reply, I’m sure a lot of them will eventually give up. Some might try to arrange meetings between you and whoever they want you to marry. And maybe some of them will never give up hope. It’s annoying but manageable.”

Kakashi, who had indeed been annoyed by this for the last couple of months, found himself picturing his future. Naruto and Hinata were newlyweds and they were hoping to start a family. They’d told him as much. According to them, it would be at least another decade before Naruto was ready take up the mantle.

Hence the picture that presented itself to Kakashi was one of himself buried up to his neck in letters. He was completely immobilized by the flood of paper filling the Hokage office, his panicked gaze on the door trembling on its hinges as it was beaten down by hundreds of furious women in wedding gowns. 

He couldn’t do this.

“A kunoichi…,” he mumbled, his heart sinking. He couldn’t marry. The thought had never even occurred to him; he’d never felt romantic love for anyone. He’d had sex for the physical gratification of it and jerked off (a lot), but getting married, having children, building a family? It was unthinkable. Beads of cold sweat forming on his forehead, Kakashi had to squeeze his eyes shut to dispel the image of the walls closing in around him.

“Kakashi-sama?”

Too focussed on breathing, he couldn’t quite reply.

“Kakashi-sama!”

“Drop the sama, Shizune. Please.”

“Are you alright? You look pale.”

Kakashi gazed at her though his daze. Shizune’s dark eyes were filled with concern. His mind was suddenly stacking up facts like a bricklayer. She was a kunoichi. He’d known her since childhood. She’d fought in the Fourth War. They hadn’t been in the same division, but that didn’t really matter, did it?

“Shizune,” he said, the three syllables of her name laden with meaning, but before he could say anything else, his assistant’s cheeks turned a rash-like red as though she was having an allergic reaction and something hard and sharp hit Kakashi square in the nose. He hadn’t even seen her fling the clipboard.

“Don’t look at me like that! A-and don’t even think about--!” her scream resounded in the office until it was abruptly cut off by the slam of the door.

Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Kakashi felt himself comforted by the informality of the words if nothing else.

***

Shizune had made a good point, though. There was only one way to make people stop bothering him without offending anyone and thereby damaging any diplomatic relationships Konoha depended on. He had to get married to somebody from his village, somebody who didn’t have a political agenda, somebody who had a history with him that would make their union believable.  
A childhood sweetheart, Shizune had said. The expression had been on his mind all day. Now, at the end of it, Kakashi slipped out of the white mantle and put the headgear on his desk. 

Yet when he walked out of the office, greeting the guards in the hallway with a nod, feeling the flicker of chakra as his Anbu bodyguards signalled their following him, he was still Konoha’s Rokudaime Hokage. He would remain the Sixth until rain and wind had eroded his face off the mountain. 

As reluctant as he had been to accept the responsibility, deep down Kakashi had thought he was prepared for the duties of a village leader - and he was - but he had not expected the title to come with this kind of baggage. The mail was one thing, the awkward introductions at official functions were another. And then there were the hints from a certain couple of councillors - those old bats who still thought they had to poke their noses into everything he did. 

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Kakashi walked past portraits of his predecessors. 

A decade of this… It would be hard to take. The alternative, however, was getting married. Once again, Kakashi pulled a face under his mask.

Arranged marriages were less common these days than they had been a generation ago, but the practice had not died out. Certainly most of the people who had been so busy writing ardent letters to Konoha’s Sixth Hokage were perfectly fine with the idea of a marriage of convenience. 

And why shouldn’t be there a way to turn something like that into an arrangement that was convenient for him? 

Shizune’s words were right on point. A marriage would put a stop to the annoying letters and if his future wife was someone who knew him, who would be open to his terms for this “marriage”, then Kakashi might actually stand to gain something from it. Though he didn’t like the idea of sharing his life with anyone, it could work with a partner in crime. 

Down the staircase Kakashi went and with each step he conjured up a former classmate. Shizune was a no, clearly. Kurenai… She might say yes. Perhaps... But there was Asuma under his feet and this was a memory Kakashi couldn’t tread on. Not when Mirai-chan was still small enough to call another man daddy if he became her stepfather. Which was the last thing Kakashi wanted, for her to grow up thinking a father was something that could be replaced. So Kurenai was a no, too. Anko would probably do it, but she would use the opportunity to torture and tease him endlessly, so no, no and no.

Outside the sun was already settling into the angular black nest that was Konoha’s outline. Soon it would slip behind the great western gate and Kakashi would slip into bed and still be the Rokudaime Hokage even in sleep, while his Anbu played cards until sunrise - unless Tenzô did one of his random checks and caught them slacking off, in which case there would be hell to pay.

Tenzô? Kakashi stopped in his tracks. Why not? he thought despondently. He was Hokage; if he wanted to change legislation, there would be a way. He knew Tsunade-sama wouldn’t oppose him - no one dared to speculate about her and her former assistant, but they had been sharing an apartment for years.

This new option was beautiful in its simplicity. With a man, there could never be a pregnancy, there couldn’t be the dreaded question “Don’t you want to have a baby?”. It would be much easier. And all the better if some people were shocked and even disgusted, all the better if they thought him weak.

They wouldn’t turn their backs on Konoha because of this - the world had changed since the war - and Konoha was too powerful now, but quite a few of them would definitely never dream of embracing him as a son in law again.

Tenzô however was Anbu. Marrying the Hokage would compromise him; he would have to be reassigned to regular jônin duty, which was something Kakashi didn’t want to decide without the man in question. Especially not without Tenzô who’d thrived in Anbu and had never had much use for names. Becoming a Hatake, even if it was only on paper, might not be acceptable to him.

This was another strange aspect of his budding plan. Whoever he chose, Kakashi thought, feeling suddenly on the very edge of depression, would have to become a member of his clan. They would be his family; they’d be added to the Hatake register. Their name would be written down next to Kakashi’s, under those of his parents. It was a serious commitment whether it was meant as one or not.

He kept walking on, the idea taking shape in his mind as he absently greeted passersby and kept track of his hidden Anbu escorts’ chakra patterns out of habit. About ten years this marriage would have to last. He would have to share a house, a bed, with this person. Shizune would know what was going on when she learned he was suddenly getting married, but the rest of Konoha… Kakashi sighed. 

He crossed Tea Road and took a right, thinking that he’d stop by Ichiraku’s for some ramen and maybe a cup of sake before turning in. An old man bowed as he passed and Kakashi smiled and called “Good evening” over his shoulder. When he looked where he was going again, a strange sight greeted his eyes. An empty wheelchair was rolling toward him. Kakashi knew this wheelchair, would have recognized it even if at second glance he hadn’t seen the feet on the push handles - one sandaled, the other one in a white cast, the word youth emblazoned on its sole. Seeing it was a sort of revelation, a sudden awareness that the answer he had been looking for had been inside of him all along. 

Of course.

There was the pat pat of bare hands pawing at the pavement, heavy breathing that almost sounded like Bull after chasing a squirrel. The wheelchair’s approach was slow but steady, and the closer it got, the more green was visible behind it, swaying slightly in the orange glow of the sinking sun.

Only an idiot would walk on his hands and push his wheelchair with his feet. Why bring the wheelchair along in the first place? 

Kakashi knew better than to ask Gai, so he did the only thing that came to mind. He walked up to the wheelchair, turned around and plopped into the empty seat. It was pretty comfortable.

“Oi!” Gai stopped. Walking behind the wheelchair as he had been doing, he probably had only a vague idea of what had happened. The increased weight of the chair clued him in that he had picked up a passenger, but from his angle he couldn’t see who it was, or so Kakashi guessed. 

“Yo, Gai. It’s pretty dangerous what you’re doing…”

“Kakashi?” Upon hearing his voice, Gai started moving again, at the same pace as before, which, Kakashi had to admit, was pretty impressive considering the weight he’d added.. “Dangerous? Hah! This is training!”

“You can’t see where you’re going,” Kakashi pointed out. “Sorry!” he called to an older lady who had to dodge off the sidewalk to make room for them.

“I know these streets like the back of my hands! I could walk them with my eyes closed - and I have!”

“I’m going to get letters of complaint about this; I can already tell…”

Gai grunted some sort of non-reply and Kakashi leaned back in the chair to gaze up at the clouds. Letters of complaint aside, this was nice. Watching the clouds drift by while someone else was doing all the work… Sometimes Gai was a surprisingly convenient person…

“Take me to your place,” he said. Sitting in Gai’s wheelchair, he was feeling much calmer than before. His whole body was relaxing with the strange premonition that things were going to be alright after all. “There’s something I want to discuss with you.”

***

On Gai’s shabby sofa in Gai’s shabby bachelor apartment, Kakashi was at home. Despite his generous pension, Gai continued to live in careless squalor. Despite his injuries, he lived on the third floor, ignoring his doctor’s orders the way he cheerfully ignored everything that didn’t fit the way he wanted to see the world.

Kakashi drank beer - also cheap but its taste was improved by the fact that Gai had paid for it, making it free beer to Kakashi. His favorite kind of beer.

He rolled the liquid around on his tongue and let his eyes wander Gai’s living-room. It was an ugly living-room, dark green and brown, wall-paper and floor respectively. The floor especially could have used some scrubbing.

The tv in front of him showed Kakashi his own distorted reflection. Gai had excused himself and gone to the bathroom and now Kakashi waited with no other company than said reflection and his own thoughts, with the plan which had taken blueprint clarity, now that Gai was in the picture.

The sound of the toilet flushing rumbled through the apartment like the growl of an angry god - ancient pipes - and then there were the new noises of Gai in motion. New, that was the way Kakashi still thought about them, those squeaks of rubber wheels on hardwood floors, though Gai had been using the wheelchair for years now. 

Having brought himself to the sofa, Gai scowled at the person drinking his beer without permission. Wordlessly, Kakashi handed over the second of the three bottles he’d liberated from Gai’s fridge. They both knew he’d keep the third for himself. He always did. 

Gai stayed in the wheelchair, but he did put the perspiring bottle to his lips. Kakashi watched him toss his head back and drink the way he always did, like he was in an advert, his eyelids fluttering shut, adam’s apple bobbing in his long, muscular neck. The only thing that destroyed the picture was the wheelchair. 

Still, the sight confirmed something to Kakashi. Or maybe it was the alcohol.

“I have a mission for you,” he said.

Gai’s eyes snapped open. He stopped drinking and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“A mission? What kind of mission?” His eagerness and the glistening dampness on the back of his hand were endearing. And yet, something about the sudden brightness of his friend’s eyes almost made Kakashi flinch.

Gai had not fought retirement at all; he’d babbled happily about setting off to new shores and new challenges, he still did, constantly, to the point where Kakashi stopped listening after the first two sentences. The point was, Gai was happy. He was completely content. Right? 

So what was this startling look in his eyes now? 

Kakashi cleared his throat. 

“It’s not your ordinary kind of mission.”

Gai leaned forward in his chair. He was all ears.

“It’s undercover. The estimated timeframe to completion is ten years.”

Gai’s eyes nearly popped from their sockets. Kakashi hadn’t expected anything less. Ten years was a long time. It wasn’t unheard of - shinobi life could be hell - but it was extremely rare.

“Ten years?! I can’t leave the village for ten years, rival!” The raw disappointment in Gai’s voice was painful to hear. Kakashi was no stranger to guilt but the pang he felt just then was extraordinary in its sharpness. 

“You wouldn’t have to. You wouldn’t have to leave Konoha at all.”

“What are you talking about? What kind of undercover mission is this supposed to be? Everyone in Konoha knows me!”

“Doesn’t matter. Your mission would be to marry me and to live as my husband until Naruto takes over as Hokage in approximately ten years.”

Gai stared at him, his mouth hanging open. “Eh?” he said faintly after a good twenty seconds had ticked by. 

“I’ve been having problems with some of Konoha’s trade partners, foreign diplomats and the like. A lot of people have been sending me letters, introducing me to their female relatives, inviting me to parties and functions, using all kinds of methods to get me interested in whoever it is they want me to marry. It’s about power and influence. As the Hokage I have power and everyone seems to want a part of it. Marriage is a tried and true way, so there’s been some pressure. I want to nip this in the bud before real conflicts arise and I think getting married to someone who has nothing to do with politics would be the best course of action. Someone I can trust.”

For another couple of seconds, Gai stared at him, pale and blank-faced. Then he suddenly grabbed Kakashi by his armor-plated vest and gave him a painful shake. “Kakashi, I’m a man!”

“So? I’m Konoha’s Rokudaime Hokage. This is a new era of peace, prosperity and progress. Changing the marriage law is the easiest part of this whole affair.”

“But...I...You...How...Why” Gai’s grip slackened; the shaking subsided to a gentle rocking. Finally, Kakashi put his hands on Gai’s wrists and stilled them. 

“I know it’s a lot to ask. Pretending for ten years of your life. It’s not…” He tried to put his thoughts into order before he continued, “it might not be that long. Perhaps this will all blow over in a few months. Or maybe seeing me marry a man will sour some of these people on wanting me to be part of their family.” Or war could break out and they could go back to being what they’d always been before. Soldiers. Killers. “Either way, we could still see other people, only we’d have to do it in secret. I want people to believe that the marriage is real. The mission is to convince everyone completely.”

“Why? Wouldn’t it be enough if those outside the village believe it?”

“No. We’ve had spies within our walls before, you know that. And I know that some people are just waiting to stir up trouble.”

Gai frowned. Clearly, he was thinking about it, which filled Kakashi with a nervous flutter of hope. “Have you spoken to your students about this?”

“No, the less people know, the better. I told you, I want everyone to think it’s real.” That was the only way, he didn’t need Naruto and Sakura lecturing him on the importance of love and he really couldn’t have word getting out that he was so repulsed by idea of marrying any of those girls that he would rather change the laws of his village so he could keep living his bachelor life with a male friend than marry any of them. 

Gai, however, was not pleased. “I won’t lie to my students!” he declared, folding his arms across his chest. “I don’t have to! They are one thousand percent trustworthy, you know that!”

“I do, but believe me, my students won’t understand and I don’t want them pestering me about it. Besides, if they think we’ve been doing it behind their backs all this time, they’ll be so grossed out, they won’t even ask any questions.”

Crimson-faced and once more unable to form words, Gai allowed his hands to fall to his sides.

“I just want to be able to fulfill my duties as Hokage,” Kakashi said, “without any distractions. Having your support would help me a great deal.” He knew it wasn’t fair to push Gai’s buttons like that, but it was the way to get what he wanted and so he did it anyway.

“Kakashi, you always have my support. And I’ll always serve the village with everything I have!” This was the reaction he had been aiming for. Gai was a little eager again if not completely convinced. That glint had returned to his eyes. “I trust you, you’re my eternal rival and my Hokage.”

***

That night, Kakashi told Gai to think about it, then went home to his apartment and to his bed where he lay, unable to sleep. A strange guilt was festering beneath the lightness of relief inside him. He knew he was being selfish. Gai’s sacrifice would be bigger than his own. For someone who didn’t love, a loveless marriage was only a fact of life, to be expected, but Gai was throwing away his shot at something more.

All Kakashi wanted was to keep living the way he had.

***

“After I step down, we’ll get a divorce,” Kakashi told Gai the next evening. He was sitting on Gai’s couch again and some part of him couldn’t quite believe that they were actually discussing this seriously.

To Kakashi’s shock, Gai instantly shook his head. “Unacceptable!”

“What, you don’t actually want to stay married, do you?” 

“Have you ever considered how this would look to our students? I won’t have Lee and Tenten think their teacher is the kind of man who gives up on his marriage to his Eternal Rival after a mere decade!”

Oh, well, this was a concern Kakashi could actually understand on some level. 

“Gai, when this is over, we’ll tell the kids the truth, okay? I’ll tell them that you were doing it for me and the village.” Naruto and Sakura probably still wouldn’t understand, but they wouldn’t be able to interfere anymore and at the end of the day, Kakashi had no doubt that he could trust them with any secret, no matter how shameful.

“Thank you.”

It was too strange to be true - even for Gai - but the grave nod he gave Kakashi seemed to suggest--. Were they really doing this?

“There is one other thing!”

Only one? Kakashi wondered abstractly.

“What you said about us secretly seeing other people during the mission, that is unacceptable too!”

“Because!” Gai held up his index finger as though he was chiding a child. “If my students suspected you of betraying my trust, it would seriously interfere with their ability to serve you as their Hokage! They would lose respect for you, just like your students would lose respect for me if they thought I was hurting you!”

“True,” Kakashi conceded. Poor Lee would probably implode if he ever found himself conflicted between his loyalty to his beloved sensei and his loyalty to the leader of his village in that manner. “So, no affairs. Anything else?” It was fine by him, he’d been getting by with porn for years now. But it did make him wonder about Gai, who was scratching his chin, making a show of giving the question some thought.

“No,” Gai said finally. 

“Does that mean you’ll accept the mission?” 

Gai opened his mouth. And closed it again, his brow knitting, the way it usually did when he was about to say Something Important. 

“Kakashi, are you sure this is what you want? True love might just be around the corner for you! You may have been walking past its budding flower all this time, if you only opened your eyes, you might find--”

Kakashi cut him off. “No. This is what I want. Because it’s what’s best for the village. No distractions, no risky entanglements. I honestly think that this will help me fulfill my duty to the village. That’s the long and short of it.” The softness of Gai’s couch where he sat, in the spot where he always sat, where over the years he’d left an imprint, seemed to have brought out the exhaustion in him. He heard it in his own voice now, and was mildly surprised by the sense of recognition of his worse self, the one he’d thought he’d left behind on one battlefield or another. 

Gai’s eyes were very dark and very honest. The hand he put on Kakashi’s knee was warm, the words from his mouth one hundred percent predictable and exactly what Kakashi had aimed for.

“Then how could I say no, rival? You can always count on me. I accept your mission!”


End file.
